When I tell people about my swim to garner interest, in hopes of securing a donation to one of my charities, the question that comes up the most is aren't you afraid of getting attacked by a shark. While there is always the possibility of a shark seeing if I am food, the chances of that happening are 1 in however many swimmers who have attempted or successfully completed the channel swim. To date there have been 321 successful Catalina Channel swims. I'll let you crunch the numbers the numbers on your own.

Does this me that I don't have any fears or won't take precautions? Yes, I have fears of what might be swimming below me but as many people have stated in the past, you can't let your fears keep you from doing something that you love/believe in. That being said I will be having a shark deterrent device on me called the ORCA. Which emits sonic Orca whale sounds and masks the sounds that we make in the water. Apparently when we swim we sound like a wounded fish, which is like ringing the dinner bell for sharks.

Mauprieto, who wrote an article for Swim4Good.com in October of this year, gives calculations on the probability of a shark attack. I will post it below. Enjoy the read. As always..

​Embrace the Suck.

The conditional probability of shark attacksBY MAUPRIETOonOCTOBER 18, 2015 •“I like my odds. It’s more likely I’ll get struck by lighting, so I’m not really worried”. This is what a San Francisco swimmer said in a TV interview after a white shark was captured on video attacking a sea lion right next to Alcatraz.

We’ve all seen the stats claiming that the risk of dying from a shark attack is only 1 in 3.75 million. And how much more likely it is to die getting a snack from a vending machine (1 in 100.000), being struck by lighting (1 in 79.000), being killed by falling icicles (1 in 250.000), dying from falling out of your bed (1 in 8.300), being attacked by a hippo (1 in 830), killed by a champagne cork ( 1 in 150.000), etc… By the way, the 1 in 3.75 million risk is using USA data. I recalculated this data using a longer time frame and taking into account worldwide data, and the global risk comes to 1 in 15 million of dying from a shark attack (Note 1).

The problem is that these reassuring claims are misleading, since they are calculated by averaging out among the entire population instead of taking into account conditional probability. The death by shark attack risk is fully concentrated on those individuals that swim/surf/dive in waters where Great Whites, Tiger and Bull sharks live: California, Hawaii, Florida, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Mexico, etc… If you don’t swim in the ocean, you have 0 risk. If you swim in the Mediterranean, you also have pretty much 0 risk of dying from a shark attack.

So, what’s the risk of dying from a shark attack if you are a San Francisco ocean swimmer?– Over a 75 year lifetime, there will be 232 shark attacks in California, 23 of them fatal (Note 2)– Over a 75 year lifetime, there will be 10 shark attacks in San Francisco, 2.3 of them fatal (Note 3)– Over a 75 year lifetime, there will be 4.3 shark attacks to SF swimmers, 1 of them fatal (Note 4).– There are 1750 ocean swimmers in SF (Note 5), so these individuals have a 1 in 1750 chance of dying from a shark attack over their 75 year lifetime (or, put it another way, 1 SF swimmer would die every 75 years from a shark attack).

The numbers will vary depending on many other factors and assumptions, but the main point is that the odds of dying from a shark attack are closer to 1 in 1750 rather than the 1 in 3.75 million being mentioned out there. So, the San Francisco swimmer interviewed on TV was wrong. He is actually more likely to die from a shark attack (one in a handful of thousands) than from being struck by lighting (1 in 79.000). That said, the 1 in 1750 are very favorable odds, which is why I continue to swim regularly in the SF Bay, just like I still sleep in a bed every night (risk of 1 in 8300) and open bottles of champagne every now and then despite the killer corks.

Note 1:– 70 shark attacks per year worldwide, or 5250 over a 75 year lifetime. With a worldwide population of 7 billion, the odds of being attacked by a shark is 1 in 1.3 million.– 5.9 fatal shark attacks per year worldwide (ISAF), or 442 over a 75 year lifetime. With a worldwide population of 7 billion, there is the odds of dying from a shark attack is 1 in 15 million.Source: https://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/statistics/statsw.htmNote 2: In the 10 years between 2005 and 2014, 702 worldwide shark attacks, of which 31 were in CA (4.4%). 59 fatal WW attacks, of which 3 were in CA (5%).Source: https://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/statistics/statsw.htmNote 3: Between 1926 and 2014 4.3% of shark attacks in CA and 10% of fatal attacks in CA took place in SF.Source: http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/statistics/gattack/mapca.htmNote 4: Between 1900 and 2009, 43% of shark attacks were to swimmers and bathers.Source: https://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/statistics/Act.htmNote 5: Assuming that there are 1750 regular ocean swimmers in SF… assuming that 80% of the 1100 Dolphin Club members and 80% of the 1100 (?) SERC members are regular swimmers

I do not mean to sound offensive, but I really cannot stand the idea of sharks. I know that they do not always kill people, but just thinking that they exist makes me very scared. Sharks are the main contributor as to why I do not ever want to go into the ocean. I just fear that a shark will appear on the ocean suddenly and knock off my boat. It really creeps me out that we cannot see what is underneath the ocean.I do not mean to sound offensive, but I really cannot stand the idea of sharks. I know that they do not always kill people, but just thinking that they exist makes me very scared. Sharks are the main contributor as to why I do not ever want to go into the ocean. I just fear that a shark will appear on the ocean suddenly and knock off my boat. It really creeps me out that we cannot see what is underneath the ocean.